


Aubade

by Penknife



Category: The Borgias (Showtime TV)
Genre: Dressing, Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:55:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28032735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penknife/pseuds/Penknife
Summary: There comes a time, being the Pope, when one must get out of bed.Set fairly early in Season 1.
Relationships: Rodrigo Borgia | Pope Alexander VI/Giulia Farnese
Comments: 8
Kudos: 7





	Aubade

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Avia_Isadora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avia_Isadora/gifts).



There comes a time, being the Pope, when one must get out of bed. Eventually one of the pages who have been racketing around pointedly outside Rodrigo's door will be sent in to roust him out, and a scene out of a farce will ensue.

"It is morning," he says, brushing back one of Giulia's tumbling curls from against her cheek. She opens her eyes with a momentary look of genuine dismay to have fallen asleep in his bed, quickly replaced by charmingly affected dismay. He raises her fingers to his lips and kisses them to banish both. "And I suppose they cannot get along without me, even for a few hours."

"I expect they can't," Giulia says, spilling the bedclothes as she sits up to reveal the curve of her bare shoulder and the glory of her breasts under tumbled hair. She is already reaching for her clothes, though, with a rueful glance at their wrinkled state. "I'll have to wear this again, I don't have anything else here." The flicker of a smile illuminates her sometimes-inscrutable face. "At least you aren't a dress-ripper." 

"I can take the care with beautiful things that they deserve," he says. He prefers less destructive demonstrations of passion. And there is a great deal to be said for this, in the aftermath of passion, sprawling across the bed caressing her hip lazily as she pulls her shift on, sitting up to help her reassemble her gown and tuck her hair back into some semblance of order.

She still holds very still while he does, as if she half-expects him to pinch her breast or tug roughly at a lock of hair to see her flinch. There are men who would feel the need to prove their mastery even over a woman who has spent the night in lustful exercise in their bed. Perhaps particularly so, feeling themselves in danger of being unmanned by a woman's power to make their heads swim.

One benefit of clerical skirts is that they excuse him from the most ridiculous demonstrations of virility. A priest is not a eunuch, as he feels he has by this point made amply clear, but neither is he required to be a fighting-cock.

"There, we have restored your dignity," he says, and she tilts her head up to invite the kiss that he brushes across her lips.

"Are you 'we,' even in this bed?" she asks teasingly.

There is no answer he can give to that which is not either blasphemous or untrue. "We are the Pope of Rome, even in this bed," he says. The robes are as easily put on and off as Giulia's elaborate dress, but the reality of it is not.

"And a man, as well," Giulia says, with that shadow of a smile.

"Officially proven to be endowed with all necessary parts," he says, spreading his hands to tease her into a real smile. Here in this bed, he is less careful of his own dignity than hers.

He leans in for another kiss, but she turns her head away. "They will come looking for you if you remain in this bed."

"Am I God's pageboy, to be roused from bed to do His will?"

"Aren't you?"

He kisses her again to avoid the necessity of an answer, and resigns himself to the beginning of day.


End file.
